Category Archives: Beginning again after a surreal six months

Beginning again after a surreal six months

I can’t even think of a good title for this post

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And yet – I have to write this down.

I must start by saying that the following by no means describes the majority of people I know who have kept in touch in the past six months and been extremely supportive and on many occasions have offered and given help. Or just little signs of life on Facebook. Not to mention the encouragement and support I got from my brother and sister-in-law and niece in Denmark, in phone calls, whatsapps, and perfectly timed visits.

But some people (not many, and I would only call them acquaintances, but nevertheless people I would see socially on and off) completely stopped contacting me after I informed everybody about my breast cancer diagnosis and looming radical, double mastectomy. As in, not one word of good luck or anything.

I am aware of the fact that being sick, and particularly with a life-threatening disease, is very politically incorrect, especially in Berlin. And people who are going to be in hospital, and – who knows – perhaps in and out of hospital, and – heaven forbid – might even need help from time to time, are considered by many, to be just too much bother and inconvenience.

So being dropped like that in itself does not bother me. I reckon they were not worth the time of day to begin with, so that there is no reason to waste any more time on or with them.

What bothers me, and what is really making me wonder about humanity, is when some of the same people are now contacting me chirpily without mentioning “it” at all. Not one word about what has been happening in my life the past six months or “good to see you are back on your feet” – NOTHING. As one person wrote: I see you were in Sankt Peter-Ording. Can you recommend a spa and some good restaurants there? Just like that.

As I have mentioned before, a cancer diagnosis, followed by major surgery, no matter the outcome, is a big deal, and I am not expecting people who have not been in the same situation to understand the enormity, but common courtesy goes a long way. And although I AM trying to pick up where I left off, that is not going to happen one hundred percent. I will never be the same person I was before. So for people who knew me earlier to callously and shallowly think they can get away with completely ignoring what has to me been a momentous life event – I am very sorry, but that is not how it works.

So a major purge in various contact lists is in progress.

Beginning again after a surreal six months

29 December walk in Wuhlheide

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With my non-existent orientation skills, I am always grateful when somebody else can be bothered to organise a walk – i.e. pick the what, where, and when, and guide us on our merry way without me having to constantly trying to make sense of either google maps or komoot.

I found this event in the Facebook group Wandern in Berlin und Umgebung, the route on Komoot here.

Weatherwise, the day started positively enough. Already in the early morning, this was the view from my balcony:

Six of us set off from SBhf Wuhlheide in relative sunshine and almost springlike temperatures (except it was quite windy). About half-way through the walk, the rain started and it was decided to cut the walk slightly short. But it was a very nice walk nonetheless and nice to see some new faces too.

Unfortunately, partly due to laziness and later also due to the rain, I did not get around to taking any photos.

Now, I can only write the following because this is my own website, with comments disabled. On social media, I am sure it would cause a shitstorm, but it is something I have always thought, never said aloud, and now I am writing it down: It is always nice when there are a couple of men participating, and not, as is too often the case, only women. It limits the amount of schnickschnack and speedtalking and makes for a more enjoyable walk – or any other event, for that matter.

The route on MapMyWalk here (from the moment when I finally remembered to start recording).

For me the total distance walked on this day: 12,5 km.

Beginning again after a surreal six months

24 to 26 December

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I wanted to see the exhibition “You know that you are human” in Zionskirche. According to their website, they were going to be open on 24 December. With the usual German IT resistance they “forgot” to add that in fact they were not. I guess switching on a device with that kind of access would have been too much of an inconvenience. This happens a lot in IT angst Germany and is occasionally driving me insane.

Still, it made me walk about 8 km in total on a day where I would normally have decided the weather was a little too miserable to go out, so the day was not wasted.

On 25 December, I was supposed to go for a 15 km walk, outside of Berlin so some travelling would have been involved as well, but the fog, which has plagued us most days since I came back from SPO, was thicker than ever, so I chickened out and went for a short walk to my local cemetery instead.

Beginning again after a surreal six months, The Balcony that "would not be affected"

Hallo neighbour

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Long time no see. You looked a lot better clad in scaffolding. I had forgotten quite how unbelievably ugly you really are.

But I will never forget being deprived of the use of my balcony for two years – in mid pandemic where it would have been really nice to be able to use one’s own balcony. Not to mention the repeated cleaning up each time a load of various types of debris – and cigarette stubs (!) – had been thrown onto the balcony, and each time layers of some kind of dust covered EVERYTHING on it. All documented here: “The balcony that would not be affected”. And the lack of light – again – during the pandemic!! – in my living room because of the scaffolding. After I had been told that my balcony would not be affected. As far as I know the biggest lie ever told to me.

Victoria Berlin

Cresco Real Estate

Beginning again after a surreal six months

Loop from S Bhf Wannsee to Teltow Kanal and back

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Route on MapMyWalk here.

My last walk with Sprechlaufwandern. To me, there is too much schlentern und schnickschnacken and too little wandern.

I need to get more active in Berliner Wanderclub, and also check out other options, e.g. this: Berliner Wanderverband. Not that I can’t walk by myself but sometimes it is nice to walk with other people. I think. Or perhaps not. We’ll see.

But it was a nice walk, led by Anne N. Weatherwise a little misty but not cold. We saw large flocks of cormorants flying, a heron in flight, and one – to me rarer – egret. I will have to go back and spend some quality time there with a longer lense.

Beginning again after a surreal six months

On 19 December a sign that the sun is still there, somewhere

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Beginning again after a surreal six months

From S Bhf Johannisthal to the Christmas Market in Rudow (or – that was the plan)

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Sunday walk organised by Lisa K.

I had signed up for the walk because according to the weather forecast, it would be sunny. I should have known that it would have been better to stay in bed 🙂 when I saw the actual weather:

It looked enchanting enough from indoors, but as I made my way towards Johannisthal, it turned out to be dark, foggy, wet, and of course cold (minus 7C).

And by the time I got to S Johannisthal, it had only gotten worse, and felt utterly miserable. I could not wait to get back home as quickly as possible and started to return before I had even found the others.

To make my day completely “perfect”, the bus from Schöneweide to Märkisches Museum was completely packed with people (I had even deliberately missed two of them because they were so full) and NOBODY was wearing masks, and nobody was checking. Berlin is pathetic that way. I should probably go and live on a deserted island but for now, I will just hibernate and treat my home as one.

Beginning again after a surreal six months

Wednesday walk with Sprechlaufwandern around Krumme Lake in a loop from S-Bhf Grünau

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I don’t know how much longer I will join these walks. They walk a little too slowly for my temperament, and today I was frozen to the bones for most of the walk, especially at the end. I guess that is the one and only downside of having lost quite a lot of weight: you feel the cold more. I used to be the last to feel cold. It is not because I am not wearing many layers of clothes. Perhaps I should look into investing in some special underwear for these occasions.

Also a bit too much chitchat for my taste, nobody enjoying the quiet of the forest, but I guess the name indicates that that is actually the purpose.

Also, it seems absurd to me to get on one’s way sometimes as early as 7.30 (and, in the case of today, in minus 7 C) in the middle of winter in order to join a short-ish walk that for some inscrutable reason which seems to be a secret starts at 9.00. Especially since this also means travelling in the one hour where public transport is at its fullest. But there must be a reason why the start can’t be postponed till 10.00. I just can’t see it.

With the morning looking like this, as change from weeks and weeks of thick fog, I was finally tempted to be on my way:

And it really did turn out to be a sunny, if – to me – bitterly cold day, and the frost did give the landscape a kind of dreamy look. The walk was really lovely, aart from the issues I now seem to have with the cold :-).

The route on MapMyWalk here.

Pitstop before catching an S Bahn back here.

Beginning again after a surreal six months

With Berliner Wanderclub along the River Spree from Ostbahnhof to Tiergarten

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Tuesday walk organised by Joachim Wenzel. Nice walk, although I felt very cold, for some reason. It was not the case for most of the others, who preferred to walk very slowlsy.

The route on MapMyWalk here.

The walk ended with lunch in Ristorante da Ponte. I had a delicious spaghetti with octopus and justified that, at least partly :-), by walking the rest of the way home (route on MapMyWalk).

Beginning again after a surreal six months

I do love meat ….

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….. especially game, lamb and poultry, although most of the time I eat vegetarian and, increasingly, vegan.

I am so tired of all these vegan creations that try to emulate the traditional, conventional foods we have all grown up with. This can only cause disappointment since NOTHING plant-based can replace meat and cheese. Personally, I have never tasted any “vegan meat” or as some call it “fake meat” or “vegan cheese” that was not more or less disgusting.

Instead, create and invent what can and SHOULD be made without animal products, without trying to copy anything that can only be made properly with animal products.

It is perfectly possible to cook plant-based food, which are great dishes, original in their own right, without being called fake this, and alternative that, and which are delicious, and which those who prefer to use animal products will wish they were able to emulate.

And now that we are on the subject of veganism, I also think people should make up their minds as to why they want to be or become vegans.

Animal welfare concers? Fine, but then I would have thought that trying to create the sensation that they are eating meat would be unpleasant.

Environmental concerns? Equally fine, but then they should not eat all those substitutes which are mainly based on soy, the growing of which is a threat to biodiversity.

And by the way – for personal health reasons, too much soy is also questionable, and when it comes to prevention of for example hormone positive cancers, or the recurrence thereof, soy should only be consumed in very small amounts, if at all.

On the – more and more rare – occasions that I crave meat (usually game, lamb or poultry, and in this season specifically duck and goose), I either treat myself to some but make sure that all the sustainability and animal welfare criteria are met, or I tighten up on my daily diet. I do believe that a craving for meat can be caused by a lack of protein or more specifically all the amino acids, so I sometimes have to re-educate myself on the food group combinations that provide the most complete proteins, which is actually surprisingly easy to achieve without involving animal products and can even provide more complete proteins than one would get from a traditional meat-and-two-veg meal.

And by then, the craving for meat has gone away :-).

Perhaps the day will come when vegan products no longer have to be marked vegan, but conventional products have to be marked “contains animal products” :-).